tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post3730131432340989599..comments2016-12-09T18:18:04.828-05:00Comments on Ask a Korean!: The Sewol Tragedy: Part II - Causes and Contributing FactorsT.K. (Ask a Korean!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07663422474464557214noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-27564146829068063572014-05-24T11:24:30.898-04:002014-05-24T11:24:30.898-04:00It does seem like we have better-developed concept...It does seem like we have better-developed concepts of life safety here in the US — though we aren&#39;t perfect by any means. However, here in the US the corporate officers would never face criminal charges, not even for one second, never mind how culpable they actually are. Now I&#39;m guessing in the ROK that the arrests of company officials are primarily for show and that if convicted of any crime they&#39;ll either serve no time or a very short sentence — like in the Sampoong collapse of &#39;95 — but here in the United States of America™, we wouldn&#39;t even get that.Scott Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03365624141792520303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-60697458484915984282014-05-24T11:14:04.959-04:002014-05-24T11:14:04.959-04:00The КПСС could probably be classified as a &quot;w...The КПСС could probably be classified as a &quot;wacky...cult&quot;.Scott Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03365624141792520303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-61208094321795009102014-05-22T02:55:04.210-04:002014-05-22T02:55:04.210-04:00Thank you for the hard work! For someone that does...Thank you for the hard work! For someone that doesnt speak Korean and can only rely on translations in English -which is not my native language- is somewhat hard to find/understand detailed information like the one you provided here. For the past month or so, I&#39;ve slammed the keyboard, tried to close the windows several times not wanting to read more about the tragedy and even found myself yelling/talking to the monitor like a real wacko thinking how ALL this could have been avoided. Since day 1 I couldnt understand why there were SO many -at that time- &quot;missing people&quot; when a ship needs some time to sink and that precious time might be enough to get most people on deck at least. I even thought it was local news&#39; misreporting but sadly it was the truth. And now, seeing the bigger picture with this shady company&#39;s monkey business -and the fact that for saving a few wons they have bought their tickets straight to jail and hell- is more than I could have imagined. No one really wanted to do a thing! Period. Its just infuriating! Even when they knew things were serious, that the ship would sink and that people on the cabins wouldnt survive down there. They could but they didnt, thats beyond incompetence. The moment they didnt answer the junior&#39;s crew, they knew exactly what they were doing.GoldenGluvzKJ2http://www.blogger.com/profile/12346040107825316324noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-15911554605891574112014-05-19T05:28:33.339-04:002014-05-19T05:28:33.339-04:00Those are not particularly Korean characteristics....Those are not particularly Korean characteristics. For example, you can study the Chernobyl disaster and subsequent evacuation. Officials sucked all the way, heroes of the day were brave firemen who sacrificed their lives to put down the fire while radiation was killing them. Well, granted, wacky Christian cult was missing from that disaster.Arawnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09312241497609745287noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-35453619109344874872014-05-09T07:13:44.257-04:002014-05-09T07:13:44.257-04:00Thank you! This is such a comprehensive post, with...Thank you! This is such a comprehensive post, with plenty of explanation. I have OK Korean, and everything here seems spot on with way more nuance than my Korean could garner. So may of us expats are still in shock. This really helps to further our understanding and helps answer a lot of questions. I appreciate your efforts. I am sure reading and translating wasn&#39;t easy, but it is much appreciated.<br />Unknownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01704229236825155571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-8405658545650474862014-05-08T19:10:22.155-04:002014-05-08T19:10:22.155-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Stephan Meierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434025684037742496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-61961974061968850172014-05-08T18:56:21.931-04:002014-05-08T18:56:21.931-04:00CJL--
Well put. I do agree that oversimplifying ...CJL--<br /><br />Well put. I do agree that oversimplifying is flawed and you correctly point out that there is some selective applying of a notion , in particular: &quot;confucianism has trained people to blindly follow authority&quot;... I would agree that is not the crux of this issue though I think it does have an indirect role (see end of my post).<br /><br />As I pointed out this tragedy has many root causes : greed (owners), incompetence (both the crew and the authorities who seem to not have enforced existing regulations), and corruption (clearly there was more going on than just incompetence on the part of some of the authorities given the many problems that were routinely being swept under the rug). Absent any one of these the disaster would not have happened or at least the majority of the passengers would have been rescued.<br /><br />Is any of this particular to &quot;Korean culture&quot; or &quot;Korean mindset&quot;? I would say no, and yet I would also say a similar accident is extremely likely to occur in another developed country. Sadly this accident does not seem to be a highly improbable &quot;black swan&quot; kind of accident (e.g. freak rogue wave) but a disaster waiting to happen... Unexpected waves, minor mechanical failure, a small crew mistake, etc all could have resulted in the ship having capsized on a prior voyage, given how top-heavy the modified ship was and how routinely it was being massively overloaded...<br /><br />So the real question to ask is what about Korea allowed such a terrible operator of a terrible LARGE passenger ship staffed by a terrible crew to keep operating, whereas (I claim) in another developed country, such a large vessel would not be able to get away with such flagrant flouting of both the laws and frankly maritime common sense for so long? To be fair, I would say that similar failures at multiple levels could occur in a developed country with a very small vessel where the number of people involved is much smaller. As an operation gets larger, and larger number of folks become involved, the law of large numbers should ensure that among that large set of people, some are honest and competent and will &#39;call out&#39; the extreme failings of the operation to the relevant authorities (both within the largish company needed to operate such a large vessel and the large number of authorities involved in the regulation of such large vessels), and at least some of the authorities will recognize this is serious and act.<br /><br />I frankly do not know the answer to that but find it an interesting question. I would postulate that (as I have read elsewhere), Korea&#39;s advance to modernity has happened much more rapidly than in other countries, and has been inconsistent, and thus in certain areas Korea still more closely resembles a third world country (where I would argue, such disasters with similar and equally extreme root causes sadly do occur periodically).<br /><br />I do agree with you that the fact that the high school students respected authority is NOT a sign of anything other than the fact that they were very young folks with not fully developed &quot;adult&quot; brains sadly not old enough to sense when common sense should take over and it is time to ignore the &#39;instructions&#39; from the crew. I suspect that would play out much the same most places in the world, and where it did not it would likely be due to a few &quot;leadership&quot; personalities rising to the occasion and saving others (and to be fair I think a few did here too!). So my hypothesis on the root causes of this is that is more related to the rapid pace of modernization of Korea (which has resulted in leaders who did not grow up in the society Korea is today or with the values Korea holds today) than to Confucianism... Confucianism would thus only play an indirect role to the extent it was a factor in how that older generation was brought up and did not encourage them to be &#39;critical thinkers&#39;.Stephan Meierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434025684037742496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-6541598030775047932014-05-08T17:00:12.849-04:002014-05-08T17:00:12.849-04:00Excellent Post. However, I would like to point out...Excellent Post. However, I would like to point out that the repeating of the sentence &#39;The Park administration was content to keep this trend going&#39; seems to be a TYPO.Compare Byeong's gov'http://www.blogger.com/profile/03085543004677063428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-4385377478925840812014-05-08T10:45:16.782-04:002014-05-08T10:45:16.782-04:00Stephan Meier,
Yes, the analogies aren&#39;t perf...Stephan Meier,<br /><br />Yes, the analogies aren&#39;t perfect. However, you make the big assumption that the students KNEW that the ship was irreversibly sinking when they were told to stay in the lower levels. Chances are that when they were hesitant about escaping, they were still under the impression that the situation wasn&#39;t as serious as it was.<br /><br />Nevertheless, the whole &quot;Blame Korean Confucianism&quot; angle falls apart when one asks why the captain and crew didn&#39;t adhere so strictly to authorities when it came to their own behavior. Obviously, there were laws and orders set in place for when such a disaster happened. The captain and many of the crew DISOBEYED these protocols, which is why they are facing criminal charges. Where&#39;s the slave-like obedience to Confucian values in their case?<br /><br />There&#39;s a severe cognitive dissonance here: the captain and crew were selfishly rule-breaking, while the students were foolishly rule-abiding. If Koreans are so consumed with obeying authorities even to their own detriment, why didn&#39;t the captain and crew do that as well? Or is there a certain age at which Koreans suddenly disavow their robotic deference to authorities and become Randian self-preservers? Since Korean air pilots, who are presumably not high schoolers, were also accused of being too Confucian, it seems that if there is such an age, it goes well into one&#39;s 30s and 40s. <br /><br />In short, it seems as though it&#39;s mostly a case of people choosing to selectively apply a preconceived notion when it fits, and completely ignoring it when it doesn&#39;t. CJLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08736678370672553493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-34433277393063217792014-05-06T09:43:43.991-04:002014-05-06T09:43:43.991-04:00The ship did sink, the captain was incompetent. It...The ship did sink, the captain was incompetent. It now looks like the crew was incompetent, the ship company was too. As was the coast guard and the government&#39;s management of maritime operations and rescue. And yesterday a rescue diver just died, on what is now an obviously far overextended, dangerous, and , yes, incompetent ongoing rescue operation.<br /><br />The Sewol sinking is part of a long line of Korean disasters. BTW, I don&#39;t know if there are more disasters in Korea than say the USA- factoring in per capita developement, population density, business/govermental experience with modern infrastructure. For all I know, Korea may better than the USA when man-made disasters are viewed in total context.<br /><br />What&#39;s glaring about the Sewol sinking is that there are things the crew itself could have done in the first many (not few) minutes to prevent the imprisoning of the passengers. I wouldn&#39;t blame this on Confucian hierarchy, which is like blaming US bridge collapses on Christianity, but I wonder if Koreans aren&#39;t overly deferential in standing up to the people in power. <br /><br />(Usual stuff about how great Korean developement, communalism, traditions, Han, etc. is. All off which I truly believe).<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />lineoffensehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17753523844065633351noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-65209216482017815572014-05-06T04:09:18.871-04:002014-05-06T04:09:18.871-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.scrambledeggshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01376621829994694584noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-84400648795435381092014-05-06T03:45:29.407-04:002014-05-06T03:45:29.407-04:00CJL--
I agree and disagree. The fail to evacuate...CJL--<br /><br />I agree and disagree. The fail to evacuate the second WTC tower after the plane struck the first tower was not a case of the authorities failing to follow procedure; rather they were faced with a situation that no &quot;procedure&quot; could anticipate -- the true black swan... Doing all possible to evacuate an obviously sinking ship is definitely part the procedure for the crew of any ship and this crew failed miserably. So I would not use this example. In addition to not showing the incompetence of the authorities, it does not show greed as a major contributing factor. Your other examples are better but also fail to bring together all the factors present here -- staying on a sinking ship is a certain death sentence, deciding to ride out a hurricane at home usually is not... And Iraq is in a whole different category.<br /><br />However you are right that the West has it&#39;s fair share of tragedies with similar root causes as this very poignant tragedy at sea: take for instance the night club fire in Rhode Island at &quot;The Station&quot; : greed (cheap outdoor fireworks used indoors by the band, cheap foam insulation used for soundproofing that was not fire safe), incompetence/negligence by the authorities who did not enforce the laws (a sprinkler system should have been mandatory but was never installed as the fire department did not realize it was required), and incompetence by the club helping to evacuate once the fire started (bouncers apparently blocked some of the exits and did not help folks to the various exits) all contributed to the loss of 100 young lives just over 10 years ago. That list of factors should sound sadly familiar...<br /><br />So yes indeed no one should be smug. That said, it is hard to believe though that in a developed country like Korea, the operators of such a large passenger vessel could get away with breaking so many rules and cutting so many corners for so long. Safety at sea has a long tradition and usually a large vessel would be manned by a seasoned crew who would also have the trust and respect of the owners (if the captain reported the ship unsafe the owner would normally be concerned!). This article was the best that I have seen in explaining how they were able to slip through the cracks despite being egregiously bad and how the crew was not as seasoned as one would expect. I hope that through this sad loss of young life that essential lessons are learned that should prevent this from happening again. If that is the case this will at least be remembered as turning point in marine safety in Korea, just as the Station Fire forced many changes in fire codes for clubs here. However nothing will bring bad the many young souls who perished needlessly and for them I grieve with Korea.Stephan Meierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434025684037742496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-58418558161399993012014-05-06T02:33:17.311-04:002014-05-06T02:33:17.311-04:00Reading this was quite painful as I am sure it was...Reading this was quite painful as I am sure it was painful for you to write. Thank you.maddragonqueenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15315469418533349445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-11679291931940492932014-05-05T14:40:07.627-04:002014-05-05T14:40:07.627-04:00Excellenty post, good research and first class pul...Excellenty post, good research and first class pulling data togetherAWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17930687773249014856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-25462027936799277482014-05-04T18:45:19.877-04:002014-05-04T18:45:19.877-04:00DanaidV,
That&#39;s nothing but an oversimplified...DanaidV,<br /><br />That&#39;s nothing but an oversimplified and rather smug expression of cultural superiority that&#39;s masked as some kind of analysis. In the later parts of his analysis, TK is sure to lay the smackdown on such lazy thinking.<br /><br />The West tries to explain whittle down everything that Asians, even Asian AMERICANS, do to this all-consuming but vague idea known as Confucianism. It&#39;s a complex philosophy, but it&#39;s become a convenient shorthand for Westerners to dismiss Asians as unthinking and unfeeling robots who can never equal Americans or Europeans when it comes to actually being empathetic humans. In times of great geopolitical and economical shifts, I&#39;m certain that such a self-serving belief is soothing.<br /><br />It&#39;s not as if these types of disasters are endemic to Asia. There have been many disasters in the U.S. where people obeyed authorities to their great detriment. People stayed in the WTC because the people around them told them to. People stayed in New Orleans because authorities didn&#39;t give them the evacuation order. People believed that Iraq was this immediate threat of Biblical proportions because the authorities said so. <br /><br />Your very post is contradictory in that you accuse Koreans to being slavishly devoted to authority, yet in the next, you accuse them of being extremely selfish. So Koreans are people who mindlessly take orders from higher ups, yet they&#39;re also only concerned with doing what&#39;s good for themselves?<br /><br />Nice try.CJLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08736678370672553493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-15882143318029580292014-05-04T13:12:25.365-04:002014-05-04T13:12:25.365-04:00This is another case of the ugly side of capitali...This is another case of the ugly side of capitalism. All to often when there is no tight regulations to control, entrepreneurs would find ways to make money with very little regards for human lives or tragic consequences. Unfortunately, this happens world over even in the USA.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10143730092002481972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-88164545677041961422014-05-04T09:27:47.007-04:002014-05-04T09:27:47.007-04:00Thank you for this very thorough report. Have you ...Thank you for this very thorough report. Have you ever considered writing a column for a newspaper?Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17226758157157715512noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-23366462137924631162014-05-04T08:42:00.425-04:002014-05-04T08:42:00.425-04:00To respond to your question about why you don&#39;...To respond to your question about why you don&#39;t understand why the junior crew members kept ordering the victims to stay put while the boat was listing, this is my explanation: Confucian hierarchy - including age differences, inability to think critically and solve problems (not part of the Korean education system), and inability to take responsibility for one&#39;s own actions and decisions are why those junior crew members did as they were told. As for the extreme cowardice, corruption and selfishness of the elder crew members, that too embodies everything that is wrong about Korea when it comes to public safety and critical thinking skills: these guys were just thinking about their own skins. Add to that the overall corruption, greed and degree of lying, and you will understand why South Korea - though a democracy - still has a long way to go to root out corruption, incompetence and to improve its safety record. (The same problem of hierarchy and age and lack of critical thinking ability in dangerous situations is what caused the Asiana airlines crash in San Francisco a few months ago). That being said, it insenses me that this could have ALL been prevented. My hat goes off to the Korean author of this article for laying out the key factors and players in this tragedy. DanaidVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11050303631791025839noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-2856456145963767262014-05-03T20:15:03.616-04:002014-05-03T20:15:03.616-04:00Thank you for that post! Well documented! Even if ...Thank you for that post! Well documented! Even if I read again and again how things happened, I can&#39;t believe how it is possible an accident like the Sewol tragedy occurred. I just feel angry.Cindy L.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17664605830853234129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-5400812136711118922014-05-03T15:56:57.228-04:002014-05-03T15:56:57.228-04:00sterben.sterben.072b660c-d2fd-11e3-bc2e-000bcdcb471ehttps://openid.aol.com/opaque/072b660c-d2fd-11e3-bc2e-000bcdcb471enoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-54319334526915386102014-05-03T13:05:09.664-04:002014-05-03T13:05:09.664-04:00Some other maritime disasters tell the same story ...Some other maritime disasters tell the same story of irresponsible behavior by captains and/or crews. See the &quot;Medusa&quot; wreck in 1816, the sinking of the &quot;Arctic&quot; in 1854, or the &quot;Morro Castle&quot; fire in 1934. We have this image of self-sacrificing conduct courtesy of the &quot;Titanic&quot;, but the reality has often been very different.Jon Ruddhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05952064205808340381noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-36490686858220753792014-05-03T05:49:13.632-04:002014-05-03T05:49:13.632-04:00Thank you for gathering up all the information abo...Thank you for gathering up all the information about the Sewol incident and summarizing it in English to non-Korean speakers like myself. Words can&#39;t describe how upsetting I am after reading your posts. I can&#39;t stop tearing up every time I watch the news about this incident. I remember seeing the image of the Sewol when it was listing when I first heard of the news, and thinking to myself &quot;what the heck are the people at the scene...why were there more effort into documenting/recording the event instead of saving the people inside the ship?!&quot; I&#39;m still appalled such incident could happen in this day and age, especially to a country like South Korea. How can those people involved in the incident be so selfish???!!!! The CREW must have niece/nephew, son/daughter, brother/sister, parents, or grandchildren like the victims...how could they just abandon the victims like victims were nothing...how could they not thought for a second before saving their asses or making calls to the operator that any one of the victims could have been their loved one. The most upsetting thing is everyone inside inside the ferry were told to stay put. What I don&#39;t understand is why the junior crew members kept ordering the victims to stay put when the boat is listing --- screw what the manual says, common sense/instinct would tell anyone that if a boat/ship is tilting, move to a higher place...why didn&#39;t the crew members tell the victims to move to a higher place, especially when they know majority of the people are in the lower deck, is appalling and confusing to me. Quynh Tramhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13346568521515965425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-87129940820602793062014-05-02T20:14:04.286-04:002014-05-02T20:14:04.286-04:00So it was the convergence of many typical Korean t...So it was the convergence of many typical Korean things: wacky Christian cults, greedy businessmen, clever operators, government collusion and corruption, cutting corners, labor exploitation, avoidance of responsibility, and unimaginable incompetence. Hooray, Korea! Fighting!GSThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497631487656894980noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-74129480325263398132014-05-02T15:19:55.214-04:002014-05-02T15:19:55.214-04:00Thank you for posting this and giving us a non-sen...Thank you for posting this and giving us a non-sensational account of what happened. It was hard for me to read the previous post and this one, and see how preventable the whole thing was. I&#39;ll link my blog to your post.<br />Daechoong Mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01530349803106285875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36405856.post-33665023298630689702014-05-02T13:58:42.638-04:002014-05-02T13:58:42.638-04:00I get teary-eyed every time I hear about that trag...I get teary-eyed every time I hear about that tragic voyage. As hard for me it is to read your account of this tragedy, I can&#39;t image how difficult it must have been for The Korean to write it. Thank you for having the strength to present this to us. Chopped Liverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18062978319684184120noreply@blogger.com